The Art Of Asking Questions

One of the most important things you, as an SGL, need to master is the art of asking questions—of starting an authentic discussion among the few toddlers, children, or students you lead. It is important to create a small group culture that encourages discussion, which paves the way for a deeper understanding of God’s word.

Advantages of Asking Great Questions:

Allows your few to talk and you to listen

Leads to self-discovery and ownership of faith

Teaches your few how to think for themselves

Basic Guidelines to a Great Question:

Avoid questions that can be answered with one word. Most often, those answers are: Yes, No, or Jesus. This is as far as your deep discussion will go.

Don’t ask a question you couldn’t answer. This is not to say you have to answer all your own questions out loud. But know, if you had to, it is a question you would be able to answer. Chances are if you can’t answer the question in your head, you will be met with stumped expressions and the sound of crickets.

Ask questions that are understandable and use everyday language. Try to be as clear and simple as possible. And because your few process differently, try to phrase the same thing a couple different ways.

Don’t settle for the correct answers. When one of your few gives you a quick answer, press them to make sure they really believe what they just said. Don’t accept “fluff”.

Repeat long answers with a quick summary. When one student talks for a long time, and is confusing, you’ll lose the rest of your group. To bring them back in, give a quick summary, or gently ask for one.

Asking great questions, and leading authentic discussion is an art. It requires skill. What are some skills you have used or seen used to keep a discussion going for your age group?

Jeremy holds a B.A. in Communication from University of Minnesota as well as a Masters of Divinity from Fuller Theological Seminary. He has a passion for connecting with and learning from student pastors, deliberatively researching, reading, and blogging about student ministry and family ministry, dabbling with online technology and experimenting in ministry lifestyle design and productivity in the church. Jeremy and his wife, Mikaela, live in Alpharetta, Georgia, where he serves as an Orange Specialist with the XP3 Student team.

2 Comments

One kind of funny but very useful “tool” all the kids know in our Kids’ Church is this – there will almost never be a question who’s answer is God, Jesus or Love. We start with those kinds of questions in our preschool small groups. by the time the kids get to Kids’ Church, we expect more knowledge than that… and we expect more of an answer than that. But here is another thing I would challenge you to try. We challenge our kids with this: if they ever hear anything I say that they think isn’t in the Bible, or they hear me quote something incorrectly or say something that’s not accurate, based on what they know, they are to stand on their chair and yell “Pastor Yvette, show me that in the Bible!” and they get a reward for the act of challenging (even if they are not correct in what they think was wrong) because we are training Bereans in our fellowship – people who can search the scriptures and test the prophets. We want nothing to do with a borrowed faith. We want every person from nine months to 99 years to know and understand their own beliefs not swallow every “wind of doctrine.” And that starts in preschool and never ends. I’ve warned our Senior Pastor that he may at some point in time have a child stand up on the pew in the sanctuary to confront something he says. His response, “Yvette, if I say something that a child thinks is wrong, I hope they do stand up and confront me. Maybe it will spur on a few adults.” I love that about my Pastor. 🙂 His, PY

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